Friday, August 31, 2012

Shmaryahu Cohen (שמריהו כהן) - the late Chief Clerk of the Supreme Court of the State of Israel

I was asked why my work is objectionable in the State of Israel.
Below are some passages from the paper, received for publication after anonymous review by 4 international data mining experts.
One of the reviewers commented that my conclusions were "not terse enough".
jz
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Integrity, or Lack Thereof, of the Electronic Record Systems of the Courts of the State of Israel
...
III. METHODS
The
study was narrowly focused on analysis of integrity of the electronic
record systems in the national courts (Supreme Court, district courts,
detainees’ courts). The study was not based on legal analysis of these
records, or challenges to the rationale of the adjudication, except for
the laws pertaining to the maintenance of court records. Instead,
irregularities in date, signature, certification, and registration
procedures were examined through data mining methods, executed on the
online public records of the courts.
Initially, integrity of the basic components of the systems were
examined: indices of all cases, calendars, dockets (lists of records in a
given file), indices of decisions, and compliance of these components
with the Regulations of the Courts, pertaining to the maintenance of
court records. and consistency of data among these components (e.g., the
date a record was filed, as listed in the docket, and as indicated in
the body of the record itself, see Online Appendix for links to data).
Subsequently, a cursory survey was conducted of the pattern judges’
signatures and clerk’s certification of records over the past two
decades. The significance of events around 2001-2003 was identified.
Accordingly,
a more detailed survey was conducted of records of that period,
including data mining relative to changes in distribution of specific
word combinations, related to certification, over time (e.g., “Chief
Clerk”, “Registrar”, “Shmaryahu Cohen” (the late Chief Clerk of the
Supreme Court), “Boaz Okon” (former Registrar of the Supreme Court),
"Sarah Lifschitz", "True Copy", etc).
Subsequently, court records that were identified as outliers in such
distributions (e.g. Decision records bearing the name of the late Chief
Clerk Shmaryahu Cohen, issued later than the date of his death) were
individually examined. Such data mining procedures enabled the discovery
of hundreds of fraudulent decision records.
Once the death of the late Chief Clerk of the Supreme Court on March 7,
2002, was identified as a key event in this context, Google searches
were conducted to further elucidate the event. It turned out that he reportedly died of “sudden cardiac arrest”, after toasting a
retiring staff member in an office party. Additionally, Google searches
discovered a complaint, filed with the Israel Police by a family
member/friend two weeks after the event, alleging murder. However, the
complaint failed to present any reasonable motive for such murder.
Regardless, web pages were discovered with various conspiracy theories
in this regard.
Based on the findings from such data mining efforts, requests were filed
on the Ministry of Justice and the Administration of Courts, pursuant
to the Freedom of Information Act (1988), for records that would provide the
legal foundation for the profound changes in certification patterns
between 2001-3, the appointment records of chief clerks of the courts,
the appointment records of the Registrars of Certifying Authorities,
pursuant to the Electronic Signature Act (2001), secondary legislation
that might have authorized the changes, etc.
Additionally, outside sources were reviewed for information regarding
the history of the development and implementation of the electronic
records systems of the courts: media reports, and in particular the 2010
State Ombudsman’s Report 60b.
The analysis was also based on consultations with Israeli law and computing/cryptology experts.
...
VIII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The
results of the current study show that senior members of the judiciary
and the legal profession exploited the transition to new electronic
record systems in the courts of the State of Israel over the past decade
to undermine the integrity of the justice system. It appears that
updates in the electronic records systems and the passage of the
Electronic Signature Act made it necessary to decide between the
development of systems, based on valid, lawful specifications and lawful
digital signatures, or systems based on no specifications and no
digital signatures at all.
The results show that effectively, decision was made around 2002 in
favor of the latter option. The most obvious trait of the systems now
in place, is that among thousands of electronic public legal records,
which were examined as part of the current study, not a single digitally
signed record was discovered.
Furthermore, the findings suggest that such decision required the
neutralization of the main watchdogs, relative to integrity of legal
records: the chief clerks of the Supreme Court and the district courts,
and the Registrar of Certifying Authorities.
It was also necessary to devise ways to circumvent the valid
certification procedures, still in existence in paper form, as
documented in the fraudulent certifications by the office of the Chief
Clerk of the Supreme Court (see Online Appendix for figures an data),
and the fraudulent Apostille certification procedure (Figure 5).
Finally, although the online publication of court records could have
increased public access and transparency of the courts, ways were
devised, whereby the online public access system would not permit the
public to distinguish between valid and void court records. Separate
data bases were concealed in the case management system of the courts,
where public access is denied. Therefore, the perception of public
access was created, while in fact public access and transparency of the
courts were undermined. [11]
...
Finally, this study is a call for action by computing experts in
general, and data mining experts in particular, in the safeguard of
Human Rights and integrity of governments in the Digital Era.

11-12-10 Where should Occupy go next? Civil Disobedience in the footsteps of Thoreau and Gandhi!http:// www.scribd.com/doc/75348301/12-06-08 Courts and Judges as racketeering enterprises under RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) - key element in the current financial crisishttp://www.scribd.com/doc/96504009/Secede! The US in its current form is simply unmanageable...

What did the experts say?

* דוח סייג לזכויות האדם נכלל בדוח התקופתי של האו"ם לגבי זכויות האדם בישראל (2013), בלוויית ההערה: "חוסר יושרה בכתבים האלקטרוניים של בית המשפט העליון, בתי המשפט המחוזיים, ובתי הדין למוחזקי משמורת בישראל".* The Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was incorporated into the 2010 Periodic Review Report regarding Humnan Rights in the United States, with the note: "corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California".* The Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was incorporated into the 2013 Periodic Review Report regarding Humnan Rights in Israel, with the note: "lack of integrity of the electronic records of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the detainees courts in Israel."

The United States

* "...it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history... where you have literally tens of thousands of fraudulent documents filed in tens of thousands of cases." Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School

* Los Angeles County is"the epicenter of the epidemic of real estate and mortgage fraud."FBI (2004)

* “…judges tried and sentenced a staggering number of people for crimes they did not commit."Prof David Burcham, Loyola Law School, LA (2000)

* “This is conduct associated with the most repressive dictators and police states… and judges must share responsibility when innocent people are convicted.”Prof Erwin Chemerinksy, Irvine Law School (2000)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/239647129/The HRA submission was incorporated into the 2015 HRC Professional Staff Report on the United States with the note: :“HRA NGO recommended restoring the integrity of the IT systems of the courts, under accountability to the Congress, with the goal of making such systems as transparent as possible to the public at large.”

[2] Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission for the 2013 UPR of the State of Israel was incorporated into the UN Human Rights Council Professional Staff Report with the note: "Lack of integrity in the electronic record systems of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the detainees' courts in Israel".

2012-06-04 Human Right Alert's Submission; 2013 UPR of the State of Israel: Integrity, or lack thereof, of the

[3] Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission for the 2010 UPR of the United States was incorporated into the UN Human Rights Council Professional Staff Report with the note: "Corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California."

2010-04-19 Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the

2010 Review (UPR) of Human Rights in the United States as incorporated into the UPR staff report:

[1] 10-10-01 United Nations Human Rights Council Records for 2010 Review (UPR) of Human Rights in the United States, where Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission was incorporated with a note referring to "corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California."http://www.scribd.com/doc/38566837/http://www.scribd.com/doc/108663259/